


The More We Get Together

by littledust



Category: Body (movie concept)
Genre: Chromatic Yuletide, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-25
Updated: 2012-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-22 08:45:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littledust/pseuds/littledust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Samuel Young is a former FBI agent turned bodyguard. He's not known for his people skills, but that may change when Owen Soma, kindergarten teacher, hires him after an attempt on his life. Sparks fly as Samuel tries to figure out why anyone would want to kill a mild-mannered teacher... and how on earth to survive kindergarten.</p>
<p>STARRING: Daniel Henney, Danny Pudi, Sophie Okonedo, and Alison Brie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The More We Get Together

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fenellaevangela](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fenellaevangela/gifts).



> A treat for you, dear recipient! I have been in love with your prompt since the moment I saw it. What a fun fandom! One of the scenes does come from [this lovely piece of fanart](http://brumous.tumblr.com/post/20689809701/fanart-based-on-this-wonderful-movie-idea-by).
> 
> No actual locations in the Boston area were harmed in the writing of this fic. Bean Appetit sadly does not exist, nor does Henney Elementary School. There really is a Curious George store, though!

There's still no damn parking anywhere in the Boston area.

Samuel Young jogs down three bright, tree-lined one way streets despite the sweltering late summer heat. It's been long enough since his college days at BU that he managed to forget that September first is the worst day of the year to get anywhere on time in the city. This year is extra special with the overlap between Labor Day weekend traffic and the million students trying to move back into the thousand colleges in the area. He's running fifteen minutes late for an appointment with a prospective client, and while he's never been a stickler for rules, people hiring a bodyguard generally like him to be on time. What if he overslept one day and they got kidnapped?

During his jog, he passes a U-Haul truck parked behind a car with some exciting new dents. Two guys who can't be any older than 20 are staring at the car and whispering to each other. Samuel gives them his best intimidating glare as he runs past. He smirks in satisfaction when he hears one of them say, "I guess we should leave a note."

Samuel reaches the door of a nice-looking brick apartment complex and rings the doorbell for the third apartment, wiping the sweat off his brow for some semblance of professionalism. Jesus Christ, it should not be this hot this far north. It's really _not_ hot after so many years in Virginia and then New York City, but that doesn't make his clothes stick to him any less. There's another moving truck parked in front of the house and the next door over is propped open, but there are no other dented vehicles in the vicinity. At least the man and the woman moving in next door know how to drive a rental truck.

There are a few muffled thumping sounds from behind the door, then it opens to reveal a slim, brown-skinned man who breaks into a warm smile at the sight of Samuel. "Mr. Young, right? I'm Owen Soma."

"Mr. Soma," Samuel says, shaking the proffered hand. He profiles automatically: subject looks to be in his mid to late twenties; short, dark hair swept back from his forehead; dark eyes; wearing faded red Converse sneakers, a pair of jeans despite the heat, and a gray T-shirt spattered with various paint colors; expression friendly but somewhat manic. In all likelihood, subject genuinely believes himself to be in danger but has not succumbed to paranoia, unless this entire situation originated in paranoia.

Subject is also fairly attractive in a long distance runner sort of way, but Samuel keeps that observation in the _far_ back of his mind. Physical attraction will not help him get the job done.

"Call me Owen," Mr. Soma--Owen--says. "Come on in. I'm sorry the place is a mess, but the first day of school is this Tuesday and I still have a lot to do. Do you want anything to drink? I have lemonade, Coke, and there's water..." He trails off when Samuel makes no response, too busy assessing the apartment now that he's taken in the man.

It's a nice-looking place, hardwood floors and walls painted white. Samuel bends to remove his shoes in the front hall to get a good look at the door: two locks, but two locks easily picked. At least there's no glass in it. As Samuel follows Owen through the hallway, he observes framed pictures of people he assumes are Owen's family. It looks to be a close-knit one with many siblings and cousins. The Somas are a wealthy family and, from what information he was able to dig up online, Owen is a member of the second Boston-based generation.

Owen leads him to a living room featuring a brown sofa, a matching loveseat, a nice glass coffee table, a flat screen TV, a sizable bookcase next to an equally sizable DVD rack, and piles of teaching supplies on every available surface, including the floor. That would be the "kindergarten teacher" portion of the profile, then. Why a kindergarten teacher is receiving death threats, Samuel has no idea. It's what he's here to find out.

"I'm going to get you a glass of water," Owen says, giving him a considering look. "Be right back." He pads off to the adjoining room, where Samuel can make out a refrigerator covered in magnetic letters and children's drawings. He sits down on the couch, pushing aside a stack of papers detailing strategies for practicing early phonics skills at home. Really, everything about this apartment screams _mild-mannered_.

Addendum to profile: subject is perceptive and considerate of others. Samuel really is thirsty. He accepts the glass of water with a murmured thank you, takes a long sip, and then asks, "So what do we have here? My company forwarded me your e-mail, but I prefer to hear it straight from the source."

Owen sits cross-legged on the loveseat across, pulling a set of letters out of one of his back pockets. "About three weeks ago, I started getting death threats in the mail. I thought it was just a prank at first. I'm sure you know that I come from a well-to-do family, but there are many families in the area with a great deal more money. I didn't even report them to the police."

"May I see them?" Samuel asks, reaching out. Owen hands them over. The three letters are typed on absolutely ordinary computer paper, all of them a week apart. All contain the same message: _Fidelity is a rare bird. A poor man wants for nothing. Return or your life will be forfeit._

"Gibberish, right?" Owen asks when Samuel looks up. "You can see why I didn't think I needed to say anything. Then, three days ago when I was out for my morning run, I swear a car tried to run me down. I was turning from Brookline Ave to Riverway and there was a car heading straight toward the sidewalk. I panicked, climbed up the nearest tree, and the car swerved at the last minute and sped off." He shudders. "I know it wasn't an accident. It was just a coincidence that I was near a tree with low-hanging branches. Otherwise, I'd be dead."

"Make and model of the car?" Samuel asks, pulling out his notepad and pen on autopilot. He clicks his pen and writes, _Possible hit-and-run? First instinct says yes--client is terrified and has no history of delusion. Why yes? What reasons?_

"I didn't get a good look," Owen says, covering a yawn. "Sorry. Haven't been sleeping that well. It was a dark-colored car, but it was a cloudy day and about 6:15 AM. I think the license plate was a Massachusetts one." He props his elbow on one knee and bends his neck to massage his temple with that hand. "I know my story sounds stupid, and I honestly can't think of any reason why someone would want to kill me, but I've dealt with aggressive drivers for my entire life. Whoever was driving that car wanted me dead."

Samuel records the information, re-clicks his pen, and sets both notebook and pen aside. This is the part where he needs to gain his client's trust, and trust is admittedly something he has difficulty inspiring, despite his track record. He knows his face defaults to a careless half-smile, something parents and teachers and superior officers have been trying to train out of him since first meeting. He frowns, pitching his voice lower to sound as serious as possible, and asks, "I think I already know the answer, but have you told the police?"

"No," Owen admits, lifting his head to rest his chin on his palm. "I don't think they'd believe me. They're overworked as it is with cases that have much more evidence. I do know that money talks, though, and I thought that a paid bodyguard would take my concerns a little more seriously." Then he straightens, all traces of exhaustion fading. "In a few days, I'm going to have 19 kids depending on me. I need to protect myself to protect them."

"Schools are too public for an assassination attempt," Samuel says. His fingers itch, wanting to pick up his notepad again, wanting a shield between himself and Mr. Young, whose expression is so earnest it makes him uncomfortable to look at it. "Whoever this would-be killer is, he wants it to be quiet and look accidental. I'll gladly accompany you to work, but you're much more at risk in your home, en route to work, and in deserted settings."

Owen breathes a long sigh of relief. "That's good to hear. I'd hate to quit the only career I've ever wanted."

"I'll still accompany you while you perform your job," Samuel says, figuring it's safe to pick up his notebook now. "I've already submitted the requisite background checks to your principal, claiming to be a volunteer interested in a career change." At Owen's look of dismay, he adds, "I doubt you want to explain to your employer, your colleagues, and the parents of your students why you feel a sudden need for a bodyguard, particularly one you've hired because you think the police won't believe you. I even have documentation that proves I'm part of an internship program at Boston University."

"That won't work," Owen says, shaking his head. "Too many connections between faculty on both campuses."

Samuel can't help the smirk, honestly. "It already has. It's a busy time of year. My paperwork all checks out and my references all forward to legitimate-sounding voicemails. You're going to teach me all about kindergarten."

To his surprise, Owen smiles. "Who knows? You might even like it." He unfolds his long limbs and rises to his feet. "If you follow me, I can show you the guest room."

*

After three days, Samuel is ready to lose his mind with boredom. Research turns up a whole lot of nothing: no hate groups doing anything more active than printing racist and/or Islamophobic paraphernalia, no enemies of the family due to its relative lack of business ties, and nothing in the family history he's gleaned from Owen points to anything that will help him decipher the letters.

The research aspect of the job is dull, and the bodyguard aspect is even worse. Owen Soma is easy on the eyes, possessed of a dry sense of humor, and a pretty good cook, but he also leads the quietest life imaginable. He goes for a 5:30 AM run every day, rain or shine. He eats breakfast and then tweaks lesson plans as far in advance as _May_ until lunch. After lunch, he goes right back to work until dinner. He reads or watches television to unwind in the evenings; he enjoys mystery novels, sitcoms, and _White Collar_.

"Who doesn't appreciate the perfection of Matt Bomer's face?" Owen asks, grinning.

"Right," Samuel says.

"I'd say I'm not always this boring, but from September through June, I really am." Owen waggles his eyebrows. "I get wild on summer break, though. Crossword puzzles by the beach and everything."

All right, so guarding Owen isn't so bad. Samuel just wants something to _do_ other than chase empty leads and help Owen in his attempt to give the new neighbors the cake he baked. Ringing the doorbell periodically throughout the day produces no results, so Owen leaves the cake on the doorstep and makes Samuel take turns watching the front door to make sure it doesn't get stolen. Samuel looks away for an instant and the cake is gone, hopefully vanished into the house.

On the first day of school, Owen rises at an hour so ungodly early that Samuel can't even bring himself to look at the clock when he wakes. He brews some coffee on autopilot--Owen doesn't drink coffee on school days, something about not wanting to risk depending on something besides a good breakfast to wake up for work--and slumps at the kitchen table with his mug, watching Owen label another set of craft sticks for each child in the class because "the first set was written messily enough that I'm afraid of interfering with their literacy acquisition."

"You can go back to bed," Owen says with a guilty look.

"Wouldn't make me a very effective bodyguard," Samuel mutters. He feels like there's _sand_ in his eyes, and he knows Owen was up folding his back to school newsletter pamphlets just as late as he was, because he printed the damn things in the first place. How is he so chipper?

At least Owen makes pancakes, which help Samuel lurch into coherency sometime around 6 AM. It's then that he notices Owen has on a tie printed with cows, secured with a pencil-shaped tie pin. Teachers.

Before they head into school an hour early, which is late for Owen on the first day of school, according to the man himself, they make a stop in front of the duplex next door to the apartment complex. "I walk my neighbor's child to school," Owen explains. "She's a former student. It's just her and her mother, who sometimes works night shifts at the hospital, so she appreciates being able to sleep in." He gives Samuel a side glance. "Indiana is... a unique child."

The unique child emerges from the house after Owen rings the doorbell. She's wearing a shirt with so many different colors of sequins sewn on that it honestly hurts Samuel to look at her. Her hair is braided into two neat brown pigtails and her smile is missing several teeth.

"Hi, Mr. Soma! Who are you?" she asks, studying Samuel with the most frank appraisal he's seen since his boss at the FBI. "My name is Virginia Marie Jones, but my nickname is Indiana because my last name is Jones like the movie hero and Indiana is another state like Virginia. That's called a _pun_."

"She has a strong writer's voice," Owen says, this ridiculous fond smile on his face as she skips down her front steps and takes his hand. "This year, I'm going to use some of her books as examples in Writing Workshop. This is Mr. Young. He's learning about teaching, so he's going to be helping in my class like Ms. Berger."

"How old are you?" Indiana asks.

"Thirty-three," Samuel answers despite Owen's warning look directed at Indiana. "I used to be a police officer. I decided I wanted to teach."

"Why?"

"It looked fun," Samuel replies. Indiana mulls this over for a few moments, then takes Samuel's hand with her free hand, evidently deciding that any adult giving her questions real answers must be a friend. If only she knew something about the letters, Samuel finds himself wishing as Owen redirects the conversation to how Indiana spent her summer trip to Florida. He'd have the whole story out of her in no time.

*

Twenty minutes in, and the first day of school at Henney Elementary School isn't so bad. All the parents are still here, and Owen is weaving from family to family, shaking hands and wearing a smile that's actually genuine. Most of the kids are still happily engaged with decorating the folders Owen spent half an hour one day labeling and then filling with various kinds of stickers. A few kids are playing with the magnetic letters on the side of a filing cabinet. Samuel observes that Owen spends an extra amount of time with them, asking questions and then makes notes on his clipboard. Figuring out what they already know about the alphabet just by playing. Owen's a crafty bastard.

Whenever a parent asks why Samuel's here, he gives them his brief spiel, they smile and nod, and then they go in for another chat with Owen or Ms. Melanie Berger, teacher's aide and tiny brunette, whose first actions this morning were to hand Samuel a donut, pat him on the shoulder, and say, "The first week is always the scariest."

Thirty minutes in, and Owen asks all families to gather on the rug for storytime. It looks like something straight out of a teacher magazine, all of the kids on their parents' laps, Owen in an actual rocking chair, and a brightly colored kiddie calendar ( _interactive_ calendar, Owen called it) on the wall directly behind him. He starts reading a story about a little racoon and his mother, but Samuel tunes it out. If any of the parents in here are would-be assassins, they're trained professionals, because he doesn't get "killer" from any of them. Another brilliant idea disproved by reality.

This classroom is something, though. Owen gave him the five-minute flash tour as he ran around this morning getting everything perfected for the first day of school. Samuel doesn't remember ever being in any classroom this _fun_. There are the usual low tables and little chairs, but there's also a large area for playing blocks and another one for playing dress-up, complete with a mirror. There are even tables just for playing with sand and water, for crying out loud. "Fun" and "time spent with small children" are usually mutually exclusive categories in Samuel's mind, but a small part of him is currently remembering how much he loved building things as a kid.

Forty-five minutes in, and Samuel is pretty sure he's in hell. The parents all said goodbye to their spawn and left. There are five kindergarteners sobbing on the rug, three that look like they're about to join their friends, and two are in a tug of war over a small plastic robot. The kid closest to Samuel turns to him with giant, tear-filled eyes, and says, "I miss my _mom_." Samuel, much to his embarrassment, can only produce a strangled sound that's not even remotely reassuring in response.

Owen and Melanie exchange the briefest of glances, and then Melanie seats herself between the two fighting children as she pulls the loudest crying child into her lap. Owen beckons the second and third loudest kids, wrapping his arms around them as he smiles, as unruffled as ever, and says, "My friends, one of the things we do every day in kindergarten is play. Gerald--" addressing one of the crying children still sitting on the rug-- "I have a very important job for you. Would you please put the big box of Legos _next_ to the easel _in front_ of me?"

One hour in, and Samuel hasn't seen a tenuous situation resolved this smoothly since early in his FBI days, when he hadn't pissed off all of his coworkers by telling them exactly what they were doing wrong. Owen dumps out all the Legos on the rug and asks the kids what they know about them. All of a sudden there are 19 excited kids trying to talk at once and no one is crying anymore. Owen and Melanie work some crowd control magic, and then there's a list of the amazing properties of Legos on the easel while the kids construct castles and robots and (according to the kid closest to Samuel) a duck.

Playing with Legos transitions to making a fruit salad for snack more or less smoothly, though one kid needs more than a couple reminders that the _fruit_ is going to be the snack, not the Legos. Samuel peels banana after banana for the kids to slice with plastic knives and tries not to feel entirely useless while Owen and Melanie move from table to table, doing things like reminding kids of the schedule and listening to tales of other cooking projects and working in questions like, "What sound does strawberry start with?"

On one of his passes, Owen murmurs in Samuel's ear, "If one of them offers you any fruit salad, say that you already had some and it was delicious. You don't want to eat anything that many kids have touched, trust me." Samuel has to repress a shiver at him being so close, because it feels _wrong_ to feel so attracted to someone in the middle of a kindergarten classroom, but damn it, competence is sexy.

Thankfully, one of the kids starts chanting _dandelion head, dandelion head_ at another kid who admittedly has a very fluffy blond bowl cut. Owen moves on, leaving Samuel to furiously clean up various fruit leavings as Melanie shoots him an inquisitive glance.

"I like your shoes," a kid says, appearing at Samuel's elbow. Didn't Owen call this one Gerald? The kid has a mop of sandy hair, in both the color and the literal sense. Someone had evidently been exploring the wonders of the sand table after finishing his fruit salad.

"Thanks," Samuel says, and then what the hell, he ruffles the kid's hair. Someone has to get all the sand out of it before he goes home to his mother.

The rest of the day includes an exploration of the playground, an exploration of the main office, lunch, an exploration of playdough, an exploration of paper and crayons, a cacophonous exploration of musical instruments, and two more read alouds. Owen wasn't kidding about the first six weeks of school being heavy on the exploration. Samuel's ears are ringing by the end of the day, and he hasn't even been speaking that much. When the last kid departs the classroom, he sinks into a too-small chair and sips the water bottle he snuck out to purchase mid-instrument _exploration_.

Owen and Melanie, of course, are in bright, animated conversation about how great the kids are and how excited they are for the school year and blah blah blah kindergarten teacher. "It gets easier, I promise," Owen says, sparing Samuel a sympathetic glance. "Both because you get used to it and because technically we don't have to be with the kids for the entire school day. I always spend my planning period and lunch with the kids for the first day of school to get a sense of who they are in more unstructured environments."

Then Owen passes him a book called _The First Six Weeks of School_ and tells him that he really should read it if he wants to work in this classroom, but he also passes him a bottle of aspirin, so Samuel forgives him.

*

As with most things, school gets harder before it gets easier. By that Friday, Samuel is so exhausted he almost falls asleep on the walk to school, and that's with Indiana grilling him on his former (false) life as a police officer. The sneezing starts mid-morning, followed by a runny nose and a delightful tickle in the back of his throat by noon.

"Your immune system is adjusting to how disgusting five-year-olds are," Melanie says, handing him a packet of tissues, which he pockets. "Thank God it's Friday, right? You can go home and rest. You should probably go home _now_ , actually."

Despite similar urgings from Owen, Samuel toughs out the rest of the day. He is a goddamn professional, even if his client is distractingly attractive, his case is most likely based on paranoia and coincidence, and he's too tired to protest when two of the kids climb into his lap during afternoon circle time. "My friends, Mr. Young is sick and we need to give him space. Remember when we talked about personal space and asking?" And then he's off, turning another tiny thing into an opportunity to teach a lesson. Samuel blows his nose and tries not to think about Owen, which is easy when his head is full of cotton balls. Rattling cotton balls, however improbable.

When they get back to Owen's place, the new neighbors are outside, each with a pair of binoculars trained on the large squirrel's nest across the street. That's what Samuel thinks he sees, anyway; he might be hallucinating at this point. Owen packs him off into the guest room with a bottle of Nyquil, a box of tissues, a mug of lemon and honey tea, and three bottles of hand sanitizer. "Get some rest and I'll make soup," Owen commands. "Um, and if you wouldn't mind trying not to touch me? I'm trying to avoid the annual back to school cold."

"Promise me you won't go jogging or anything without me," Samuel says, which is testimony to how rotten he feels. He's a _good_ bodyguard. His people skills are still shit, but his clients mostly care about his size, strength, and marksman ability. As far as he knows, he still holds the FBI record.

He takes some Nyquil and crawls into bed. He thinks he sleeps for the eight promised hours, because when he opens his eyes, it's to complete darkness. He slips in and out of consciousness for the next few hours, forcing himself to drink water even though now his throat aches along with the rest of his body. His subconscious helpfully throws up a weird nightmare mishmash of memory and fear: his dreams feature his last family gathering on Father's Day two years ago, where his older brother and sister showed up with their beautiful families and he showed up alone, empty-handed, and newly fired. Owen is there in the dream, and he's playing with Samuel's nieces and nephews. Then Anton Volkov, the Russian Mafia man who just missed stabbing Samuel in the chest and got him in the shoulder instead, not his dominant arm, thank God--but he's there at the party, throwing a knife that Samuel will never, ever intercept in time...

Samuel emerges from his cocoon of blankets at 10 AM the next morning. Owen exiles him to the loveseat while he works on the couch, but he delivers on the promise of soup and lets Samuel watch Law & Order reruns and criticize the police work. He never worked as a cop, went straight to Quantico after college, but he knows enough to be properly cranky at the television. Owen makes murmurs of agreement, refills Samuel's tea without being asked (not that Samuel _would_ ask), and continues writing in his notebook.

"I'm profiling all my children," Owen says after Samuel's throat is too sore to continue ranting about television's inaccurate and his body is too tired for him to keep his eyes open, though his mind is still awake. Blurrily. "Likes, dislikes, learning styles, prior knowledge, friendships, whatever data I have. You should talk to the kids more. They think you're cool, mostly because of the aviators, but they're a little afraid of you."

"I'm not good with kids," Samuel admits. It's easier to say with his eyes closed, because he's certain Owen looks appalled. "I like 'em just fine when there are just a few, but I don't know how you do it."

"Children just want adults to keep them safe and love them," Owen says, voice warming as it always does whenever he gives teacherly advice. Samuel cracks an eye open and Owen is smiling, kind without being condescending. What an unfairly decent human being. "They want to know the behavior expectations for any given situation, they want to know that you'll enforce those expectations, and they want to be praised. You've got the enforcer side down without even trying. Just smile more and tell them you like the way they're sharing with their friends, or ask them about their families. Melanie and I don't expect wonders from a first-timer. You'll do fine."

Samuel doubts he'll ever reach anywhere close to Owen and Melanie's level of expertise as he hacks and coughs and sneezes his way through the weekend. He feels mostly alive by Sunday night, and as he falls asleep, _you'll do fine_ keeps running through his head. The words are simple, but the absolute sincerity backing them up feels like a hand holding his, a guide for a too-large world.

*

Samuel recovers. Owen's anti-cold-catching strategies are successful. By mid-September, all of the students in Class 102 know the daily routine, adore Owen and Melanie, are warming to Samuel, and can recite the class rules backwards and forwards. Reciting the rules isn't the same as following them, of course, but Owen and Melanie handle the inevitable hiccups with incredible grace under pressure. Whenever things get chaotic, Owen actually sends Samuel to make copies, which should be insulting, but he's grateful for the reprieve. The one time he told a kid "You can't throw erasers in school," the kid burst into tears and hid behind a bookcase.

"Try 'Is throwing erasers safe?' next time," Owen advises, handing him a stack of handwriting practice worksheets. In the past two weeks, Owen has subjected Samuel to many a rant about how much he loathes worksheets as busywork rather than tools for actual learning, but the rant always ends with calling them a necessary evil, especially in regard to homework. Samuel thought about asking since when did kindergarteners have homework, but didn't want to risk another 30-minute lecture about the intellectual capacity of the average five-year-old. Owen is fun to watch when he gets into a subject he's passionate about, but he's also long-winded.

In a way, it's a relief to dig up some evidence that Owen is human, not just a robot programmed to the "affable kindergarten teacher" setting. Unfortunately, Samuel discovers this by screwing up in front of the entire class _and_ the principal, who visits periodically to chat with the kids and "make the new intern feel at home." Supportive adults are bizarre. According to Owen, the vast majority of schools in Brookline are like that, public or private.

It goes down like this: the day was pretty rough earlier, but now it's center time, meaning that Owen is running the ABC center with little chalkboards for the kids to make their letters, Melanie is running a math game that involves dice and a lot of giggling from what he can tell, and Samuel is in charge of circulating the room, making sure that no one eats sand or paint before moving on to their next center. The kids like to show him whatever they're working on, and usually by 10 minutes into center time, he's been suckered into reading to Leah or drawing butterflies with Alexis. He can't say no to little girls at all, a weakness he hopes no one but Owen and Melanie ever find out.

Today, it's butterfly drawing. Alexis scoots her chair over as close to his as humanly possible and draws right at his elbow, humming their good morning song. They're joined by Mark, whose sole ambition is to drive trains, and Alejandro, who has decided he and Alexis are best friends because their names sound "almost the same."

"I can't draw the wings!" Alexis says, poking her lower lip out and looking up hopefully at Samuel through her bangs. He knows he's being manipulated, and yet he's helpless before this five-year-old child.

"You just do it like this!" Alejandro says, leaning over and drawing two quick butterfly wings on Alexis's picture. Alexis looks from her paper to Alejandro to her paper again, and then bursts into loud sobs.

_Logical consequences for actions,_ says Owen's voice in the back of Samuel's mind, so he holds his hand out to Alejandro and says, "Give me the pencil."

"It's my pencil from home!" Alejandro protests, clutching at the perfectly ordinary yellow pencil.

What do Owen and Melanie always say? "That's not a choice, my friend," Samuel says, with an inward groan over how ridiculous he sounds. When Alejandro still doesn't comply, he tries tugging the pencil gently out of the kid's hand. The kid bursts into tears, adding a second crying child to the table, and at that point Owen comes over to intervene.

"Mr. Young," Owen says, and his voice is perfectly pleasant, but something in his eyes tells Samuel that the man is incredibly annoyed, and all of that annoyance is directed straight at him. "I'll take it from here. Would you mind taking this form down to the office? And making fifty copies of everything in the copy folder on my desk?"

It's classic redirection, code for _get the hell out of my classroom, you incompetent fool._ Samuel does as requested, hoping that the rest of the staff don't notice how red his face is, or at least don't comment on it. It's not his fault he's terrible at a job he never wanted in the first place. When this job is over, he's going to go on vacation somewhere deserted, like Alaska.

He's still making copies when the school day ends and Owen comes to find him. "Sorry about that," Owen says. He looks exhausted. "It was a stressful day and I was frustrated to have my letter formation lesson interrupted. You're still learning." Owen's probably been rehearsing that speech all afternoon. One of his odder before school practices is to pace around the classroom muttering his way through an overview of the school day.

"So tell me what I did wrong," Samuel says, deciding to just get it over with. "I know you want to."

"Okay," Owen says, a little _too_ readily, and takes a seat. "Half of classroom management is knowing how to pick and choose your battles. Was it worth a fight over a pencil when Alejandro meant well? No, though he needed to understand that Alexis's work is hers. Here's what I did to solve the problem..."

By the end of September, Samuel finds that he doesn't _mind_ listening to Owen espouse the wonders of the responsive classroom and actually flips through some of Owen's education books. He puts off telling Owen that the threatening letters are probably someone's overly long and unfunny practical joke, since as far as he can tell, the only odd thing Owen has in his life is his next door neighbors, who have progressed to making detailed sketches of the squirrel's nest across the street. Maybe they're Australian.

Then there's Owen: bright, animated, funny Owen, who Samuel watches all the time even when he doesn't have to. When he hears himself telling a kid kicking the wall, "It's okay to have feelings, but I'm worried that you'll hurt your foot," he knows that he's in deep trouble.

*

It's on one of Samuel's copy room sojourns that Melanie corners him. He turns from pressing the start button and she's behind him, too quiet in her sensible teacher loafers. Samuel does _not_ yelp, but he does jump a little bit. "Melanie," he says, recovering.

"Are you single?" Melanie asks, smile sunny as always but with an edge to it, like a lollipop with a razor inside.

"I'm gay," Samuel answers with an inward sigh. The last thing he needs is a bubbly brunette with a crush on him, especially when he's doing his best to avoid developing a thing for her coworker.

"I'm not asking for me, you idiot." Melanie's a Grade A sweetheart in the classroom, but much like Owen, she has a dry, sarcastic sense of humor outside of it. (That was another of Owen's lectures, why sarcasm is inappropriate in an early childhood education setting.) "You totally have a crush on Owen, and it's nice to see someone head over heels for him rather than the other way around."

"You're imagining things," Samuel says, laying the stacks of homework papers on the table in order so he can start assembling and stapling next week's homework packets. He is _not_ going to ask about Owen's dating history, because he is _not_ going to date a client. 

Technically, he could date him if Owen stopped being a client, but then the company would just move him somewhere else, probably some Disney Channel star on tour. Samuel has no close ties to anyone and few possessions, so he's the one who takes assignments all around the country, though he tries to stick to the East Coast. When a client shows signs of settling down, he tends to request another assignment. He only took this one because his last one involved a minor New York theater celebrity who thought that "bodyguard" was short for "person who will hold my hair back whenever I go on benders, which is all the time."

Though he's careful not to look Melanie in the face, he can see her folding her arms. "You walk him home _every_ day, Samuel. Don't think I don't see you two leaving together. You don't like anyone else--I really wonder why you've chosen this profession!--but you smile at him when he talks to you. That's the only reason the kids aren't still scared of you, by the way. Mr. Soma likes Mr. Young and Mr. Young likes Mr. Soma, so he can't be too bad."

Samuel makes a grunt of acknowledgment. It turns out to be the wrong choice, because she lunges forward and actually points a finger in his face, forcing him to turn and take in her fierce expression. "Are you just here to pursue Owen instead of a degree? Are you one of those guys who loses interest as soon as he likes you back?" she demands, drawing herself up to her full 5'3" height. "Because let me tell you, that's a shitty thing to do to him _and_ to our class. Maybe you haven't made a commitment to Owen, but you've already made a commitment to Class 102. If you break _anyone's_ heart, I will _find_ you."

Maybe he should get Melanie to write threatening letters to whoever is pranking Owen. She might be a tiny young teacher's aide, but she's _terrifying._ She could give the instructors at Quantico a run for their money.

Samuel also notes that she doesn't mention anything about whether Owen has feelings for _him_ , and swallows the disappointment he shouldn't be experiencing anyway. "I have no intention of cutting and running," he says. "I like it here. Kindergarten just isn't as easy as I thought it would be."

Melanie's face softens and she puts her accusatory finger away. "It never is, even after you've been volunteering in classrooms since high school. I'm a little protective of Owen--" understatement of the year-- "because I did my student teaching with him, back when he was co-teaching with our old special ed teacher, Mrs. Richards. He put his own work aside whenever I needed help, made me the world's cutest teacher survival kit, and was even more warm and supportive than my actual mentor teacher. Which is saying something, because she's great, but it was her second to last year before retirement and she was too tired to stay late most days." She takes Samuel's stack of finished packets and picks them up, shuffling them until they all lie evenly. "He denies it to this day, but he got me this job. He's one of the most dedicated people I know, and just because Jack was a _jerk_ \--" She cuts herself off with an angry sniff.

"What about him?" Samuel asks, oh so casually.

Melanie smirks, not fooled. "They were together when I first met Owen three years ago, broke up last year. I don't know why they got together in the first place, since Jack was this boring finance guy who was obsessed with expensive pieces of technology and _hated_ kids. He never understood why Owen worked such late hours, even though he regularly worked sixty hours a week to make sure the world's supply of money went to the right places or whatever." She waves a dismissive hand. "God forbid Owen try to work while Jack was at home, though, because it had to be _all_ about him. The rest of the staff and I considered throwing Owen a party when they broke up, except Owen was too sad."

"Jerk is right," Samuel says, setting the last stapled packet aside and sitting on the edge of the table. "Not to mention a hypocrite."

"Exactly!" Melanie says, then breaks into a wicked grin. "You do realize that this is the only conversation we've ever had that wasn't related to the weather, traffic, or work, right? You _like_ him." She singsongs the word "like," drawing it out across at least three different notes.

"Shut up," Samuel mutters, because apparently working in an elementary school makes you regress in maturity.

"Relax. You're still on trial when it comes to being good enough for Owen, but you just heard about your predecessor." Melanie begins ticking off items on her fingers. "You're handsome, you learn quickly even if you're not all that confident in your teacher-child interactions, you looked offended when I suggested you might abandon the classroom, and you have a _crush_. Plus when Calvin ripped his jeans, you told him that's how rock stars wear their jeans, which will be hell to explain to his mother but did stop him from having hysterics. You have my cautious approval."

"And when I have your full approval?" Samuel asks, dry as the Mojave Desert.

"I'll help you woo Owen!" Melanie announces with a flourish of her arms. "It's hard to figure out whether Owen likes someone because he likes _everyone_ , but I thought I caught him appreciating your rolled up sleeves yesterday."

"Thank you for supporting me in my zone of proximal relationship development," Samuel says, rolling his eyes. He takes a moment to listen to what he just said and concludes that he's definitely been spending too much time with Owen.

*

It turns out that Owen is a marathon runner, which isn't surprising considering his build. "I take everything easy for the first month of school--" which means "only" two miles in the morning and four on Saturdays-- "but October means it's time to pick it up again."

It turns out that Samuel isn't ready to pick it up again, though, considering he was never training for a marathon to start with. Owen cuts his normal five mile morning runs to three mile runs for Samuel's sake. Samuel has always been fit, but his stamina for long distance running isn't what it used to be. Besides, there's a hell of a lot of concrete here despite the parks all of Owen's routes include, and it wreaks havoc on his knees.

As a courtesy to Samuel's definitely not embarrassing shin splints, they also start making a regular stop at Bean Appetit, this little cafe three blocks from Owen's place. Owen likes making his own food (of course he does), but "I want to support local independent business" (of course he does). Bean Appetit does a mean coffee cake despite the cutesy name, so Samuel says nothing about Owen's bourgeois lifestyle.

"You're getting better," Owen observes over coffee one stunningly beautiful Saturday morning in October.

"What?" Samuel asks, preoccupied pondering two things: how to bring up the fact that by now the letters are almost _certainly_ a prank, and the flex of Owen's long fingers around his mug of tea. Mostly the latter.

"Your running. Sorry that being my bodyguard essentially forced you into marathon training," Owen says with a laugh. "It'll help you have more energy with the kids, at least. Are you excited to make applesauce next week?"

There's an opening there for Samuel to say, _Yes, but you do realize you're essentially paying for a live in classroom aide, right? Nothing has happened besides the letters. No attempted hit-and-runs, nada._ He takes another bite of his coffee cake instead, though it tastes like dried playdough and sticks to his throat. He should quit. He should have quit two weeks ago, when he admitted out loud to a less than professional interest in a client. If he takes a job on the other side of the country, Melanie won't be able to find him. Probably.

He glances out the window rather than accidentally meet Owen's gaze for too long again. (God, this is getting embarrassing. He is a grown man.) It's then that he notices a tall black woman with short, curly hair. She's dressed in jogging gear and stretching against a street sign. She was also looking in the window of Bean Appetit until she noticed Samuel noticing her.

All the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He's seen her twice before now, once outside Henney Elementary and another time on their morning run.

"Samuel? What's wrong?" Owen asks.

"Move away from the window but _stay here_ ," Samuel commands, rising to his feet. His gut says this woman is alone. Owen should be safe in a public place, and if this woman is packing, it would be riskier to take him with him.

The bells on the door jingle as Samuel opens it, stepping out into the sunlight. He swears when he sees the woman already running and sprints after her, almost mowing down two women jogging side by side in his haste. She's fast, but she can't have been shadowing their runs for long, because Samuel is gaining at a rapid clip. His lungs burn as he pushes himself farther, faster. This is proof that someone really is out for an innocent kindergarten teacher's blood. This is _Owen's life_.

The woman passes a small farmer's market setting up and her hands shoot out, sending a crate of apples tumbling onto the ground. The owner stands in the middle of the sidewalk shouting after her. To get him out of the way, Samuel bellows, "FBI! Freeze!" and weaves in between the bouncing, rolling apples. Thank God for the jogging route that takes them up and down hills, because he's still gaining.

She's less than ten feet away, legs and arms pumping, not risking looking back. Whoever she is, she's a pro, and Samuel has the sinking suspicion that she's been tailing them for longer than three days. He has to catch her now, before she can lead him to a deserted area and pull out a weapon. His leg muscles scream at him, but he puts on another burst of speed and his fingers close around the thin material of her tank top. She keeps running and the fabric starts to rip, but then his scrabbling fingers find the back of her sports bra and _pull_.

The woman shouts, arrested mid-stride, and then recovers enough to swing a fist at him. Samuel grabs her by the hair and slams her head against a parked car, letting go of her bra so that he can catch both arms and force them behind her back. He leans against her, pressing her into the car's side and snarling, "Who are you?"

"Piss off," she grits out between clenched teeth. Her accent is British, probably upper class if Samuel remembers correctly, though telling accents apart is more of the CIA's gig.

Samuel removes his gun from its holster and presses it against the back of her neck. Calmer: "Who are you?"

She goes still, but her breathing hitches slightly only at the first brush of metal on skin. "Olivia Ikeba, MI6," she says with matching calm. "You're not FBI anymore, Samuel Young."

He keeps the gun trained on her. "I work for the private sector now, as you already know. Why should I believe what you say?"

"My ID badge is clipped to the inside of my shorts."

"Means nothing. You could have forged it."

"Does the name Cygne Noir mean anything to you?"

Samuel lowers the gun and steps back, letting the woman--Olivia Ikeba, if she's telling the truth, turn around to face him. There's a bruise darkening her cheek. Carefully, he says, "International crime ring specializing in heroin trafficking. They've hit the States again?"

"They're here in Brookline." Olivia folds her arms. "What's a kindergarten teacher want with a bodyguard unless he has something to hide?"

"No." Cold trickles down Samuel's spine like a melting ice cube. "You have the wrong man." He wants to protest further, to elaborate with evidence that Owen Soma has never even heard of organized crime outside of television and the paper, but his training stills his tongue. He still doesn't even know whether this woman is really MI6.

Olivia arches one unimpressed eyebrow. "That's really all you've got? I'd love to explain the process that led me here, but I'll need information in exchange. How do I know you're not assisting a dangerous criminal, however mild-mannered he seems?"

"Client confidentiality," Samuel says.

"International security, not to mention that of your client," she counters.

They glare at each other. In the distance, a Green Line train blasts its horn. "Fine," Samuel says, biting off the word. "He hired me because someone tried to run him over at the end of August after sending him threatening letters. The letters have continued; the murder attempts have not. I was beginning to think it was all just a prank until you showed up." He gives a curt nod. "Your turn."

Olivia rubs at her cheek, lips pursing. "Like I said, you're not FBI anymore. You're a civilian, and I know _why_. I did my research. I can't tell you anything unless you consent to becoming an informant."

Samuel doubts that's the official policy of MI6, but this is his only lead in months. When he closes his eyes, he can see his last glimpse of Owen, round-eyed with shock as he watched Samuel sprint out of the cafe. This woman has information that could help save his life. "Fine," he says again, attempting for less rancor this time. "Show me yours and I'll show you mine."

Ignoring the innuendo, she puts her shoulders back and stands with her fists at her sides. "I was following up on a jewelry heist in Paris when we found evidence that one of the thieves was connected to Cygne Noir and fled here with the jewels. The communication we intercepted specifically mentioned Brookline, Massachusetts. We don't know anything about this thief aside from his being a master of disappearing. We don't even know his name. All we've got are some grainy pictures."

_Some intelligence agency,_ Samuel thinks, but stays his tongue as he tucks away his gun. "Run into me tomorrow morning at Bean Appetit. I'll pass on copies of the threatening letters, you pass on the pictures. There's a connection between our cases, we just have to find it."

"Affirmative," Olivia says, turning to leave. She pauses mid-step and looks back. "Tell no one about our arrangement. International crime is no field for a kindergarten teacher."

"Affirmative," Samuel echoes, beginning the long walk back to the cafe.

*

Owen is alarmed to hear that Samuel saw someone--a man, he lies--following them and that he got away, but relieved that Samuel returned intact. "Should we stop running in the morning?" he asks.

"No," Samuel says. "I'm actually getting fond of our route. I know Sunday's generally the day off, but mind if we go for a walk tomorrow?"

"Not at all," Owen says with a brilliant smile, and Samuel feels like the scum they had to scrape out of the classroom water table last Thursday. At least Owen lets Samuel talk him into wearing two tracking devices, one on his running shoes and one on his favorite tie pin. Every letter says _Return or your life is forfeit_ , but if Cygne Noir thinks Owen knows something, they might go for the old snatch and grab first.

While Owen is engrossed in a long phone discussion with Melanie about some show called _Parks & Recreation,_ Samuel makes copies of the letters, including the one that arrived today, and folds them into a square small enough to be concealed in the palm of one's hand. Then he makes a few phone calls. He doesn't have friends in the FBI, not exactly, but he saved a few lives in his day, and those agents are in his debt. He confirms that MI6 does have an agent named Olivia Ikeba and that there was a recent jewelry heist in Paris. When he receives questions in response to his questions, he hangs up.

What does Cygne Noir want with Owen? Has a member of his family picked up a brand new heroin addiction?

"I don't know much about you aside from your profile and your opinions on standardized testing," Samuel says after Owen hangs up. "Tell me about yourself."

"That's because I'm actually a fairly private person," Owen says, but he looks pleased. "I'll tell you my life story over food. We should order in; I'm feeling reckless. What do you want?"

_To take you out to dinner,_ Samuel says, and follows that thought with: _To beat my head against the wall._ "Spicy. Mexican or Thai or Indian. Uh. Do you eat Indian takeout, or do you have opinions?"

Owen rolls his eyes. "My family likes chicken tikka masala, if that's what you're asking. The ones who eat meat, anyway. I'm more in the mood for Mexican tonight, so Mexican it is." He opens his laptop and taps at the keyboard. Foodler is a devious invention: an online food ordering service that stores your credit card information. Now that Samuel knows about it, he's doomed.

"Do you see your family a lot?" Samuel says, leaning over Owen to select his food order from the menu. Owen smells good, like vanilla and cinnamon. It's probably that tea he likes so much.

"Usually," says Owen, sounding distracted. "It would be hard to explain the bodyguard without them freaking out, though. I've been putting them off with stories of an extra busy school year. It's surprisingly easy to avoid people even when they live in the same city. What about your family? Do you see them often?"

And that's the problem with asking personal information: people expect to get it in return. Samuel steps back and crosses his arms, considering how to best put his family situation. He doesn't like sharing personal information either, but he does like Owen. "My family is concentrated in San Francisco. My parents are still together. I asked about the Indian food because they won't order Korean from a place where they don't know the owners. My older brother and sister are both married with kids. I don't get out to the West Coast often."

"Not close?" Owen asks, making his own food selection.

"No."

That effectively kills the family conversation, and Samuel is no closer to discovering whether a relative of Owen's has a drug habit. He should stick to finding things out the old-fashioned way: through illegal use of FBI databases.

Owen fills the silence with a quiet, unasked for, "I lost touch with a lot of my friends after I started working. I got a job right out of college and threw myself into it. I burned myself out so badly that it took the breakup of a relationship that lasted all the way through college to make me slow down. I still don't have much of a life."

Samuel snorts. "You think you don't have a life? Try working a job where you pick up and move all the time. I have a home base in D.C., technically, but I'm never there. I was a great agent, but as you may have noticed, I'm crap with people. Cost me my job. Would cost me this job, but most clients don't ask me to talk to them."

"I don't think you're crap with people," Owen says with a slight pause before the word "crap," like he has to remember that they're not currently in or near a school. "I think you're incredibly straightforward and prefer to ignore social cues. That's not always a bad thing. No one ever has to guess what you're thinking."

"Oh? What am I thinking right now?"

"That you're hungry." That earns him a laugh, and Owen smiles in response. His eyes crinkle when he smiles that big. "Also that what happened today worries you. I know this makes me sound ridiculous, given the attempt on my life and all, but I'm almost glad that this whole situation is real. No, well, I could use less of the fear. I'm glad I got to meet you, though."

Luckily for Samuel, the doorbell rings at that moment. Their food is here, so personal conversations and way too sincere confessions will have to wait.

*

The case appears stuck in a holding pattern: one brief burst of action, then several weeks of just letters, then another burst, then more letters. Halloween comes and goes in a blur of small children hyped up on sugar. Meeting with Olivia every few days is the most that comes out his thrilling chase through the streets of Brookline. He looks at the photographs, as grainy as promised, and they're all of a tall, thin blond man in aviators and with a scarf wrapped around the lower half of his face. Unhelpful. For Olivia's part, she determines that the letters are typed in 12-point Times New Roman, and that "Fidelity is a rare bird" is a possible reference to Cygne Noir. Clearly, they've hit some major breaks in the case.

"Surprised to find you out running," he says, palming the object in Olivia's hand. It's a thumb drive today, interesting. "Nasty rain." In true New England fashion, the weather remained just hot enough to be irritating before taking a turn for the frigid and wet.

"I'm not a witch; I won't melt in the wet," Olivia replies. She wrinkles her nose when she takes his intel, still in paper form. It's probably not going to melt in the rain. He put it in a sandwich bag.

"You talk to her a lot for someone who doesn't like people," Owen observes as they walk back from Bean Appetit, on their way to pick up Indiana for school. "I think she's new to the neighborhood along with our squirrelly friends. Do you know her name?"

"No," Samuel lies, then immediately feels terrible and changes the subject. "What do you think Indiana will be wearing today?"

Indiana enjoys decorating her own clothes, and is the only second grader Samuel knows who can actually sew. Today requires a bright yellow raincoat with material that won't allow for sequins. She's solved the problem by making designs out of masking tape and then drawing on the designs. "Good morning!" she announces, skipping down the sidewalk to meet them as she twirls her umbrella.

"You're in a good mood today," Owen says.

"It's almost Thanksgiving and my mom is going to be home the whole time I'm on school vacation!"

"That would put me in a good mood, too."

Samuel and Owen's grand plans for Thanksgiving include watching the parade, elaborate turkey subs that Owen calls "grinders" for some reason, and possibly football if they can find a team they can both tolerate rooting for. It's the first time in years he's looked forward to the holiday, which is second only to Christmas in stressing the uninhibited bliss of family togetherness. Owen doesn't seem all that happy about missing Thanksgiving with his family, though. He's been on the phone with his parents more and more.

"You guys are like the penguins," Indiana says, several puddle jumps later. "I can't be your tango 'cause I want to stay with my mom, but you should adopt a baby!" She runs ahead to leap over an especially large puddle, having made her confusing declaration.

"What?" Samuel asks.

Owen coughs into his fist. "Perhaps you've heard of the children's book about the two male penguins who hatch an egg? I have it in my classroom. It... helps broach the subject of my personal life to parents. I don't want to hide photographs on my desk on parent-teacher night."

"People have problems with gays in Yuppieville?"

"Yeah," Owen says quietly. "I had a few children moved from my class every year until I built enough of a reputation. There's a terrible stigma about men working closely with children, particularly gay men."

Samuel can't really speak to the matter of being out at work, because the last time he had a relationship he was still trying to date women and wondering why he wasn't interested, so all he says is, "That's messed up."

"One of my professors warned me. At least I didn't let it stop me from doing what I love."

"Yeah," Samuel says, and thinks of the thrill of graduating Quantico, the sense of certainty that came of trying to put bad guys away. Guarding Owen is the first thing that's felt _right_ in years.

*

Thanksgiving break departs with a light dusting of snow that gets washed away by icy rain almost immediately after. Samuel is sick again, just a mild head cold this time, and he adds a mini bottle of hand sanitizer to the ever-present pack of tissues in his pocket. His other pocket is host to an ever-changing assortment of pencils, crayons, plastic insects, and hair clips. Owen has a box on his kitchen counter specifically for taking his pocket collections back to school.

"Why do I have a purple butterfly sticker?" Samuel asks one day after school. They're still in the classroom, of course, since a teacher's day is technically six and a half hours long but Owen and Melanie are in the classroom for at least 40 hours a week. Today, Melanie actually left at the end of the school day because of a doctor's appointment, yet she still looked guilty for ducking out.

"I believe the question is why don't _I_ have a purple butterfly sticker?" Owen asks, taking the sticker and examining it. He peels off the backing and sticks it on Samuel's right cheekbone, near his eye. "There. Gorgeous."

Owen has been arranging a field trip, completing report cards, preparing for parent-teacher conferences, and updating the classroom display boards for the upcoming winter performance. It's possible he's become a little punchy over the past few hours. When Owen stood up with his laptop to grade because he could no longer stand sitting--the man has more kinetic energy than anyone Samuel has ever met--Samuel suggests they clean the classroom instead, and here they are, chipping off old paint from the bottom of the easel.

"I will have my revenge," Samuel promises.

"Ah, but would you touch a man with... _rainbow_ fingers?" Owen asks, wiggling the fingers on the hand he's been using to scrape away the dried paint. They are indeed stained in rainbow colors.

Samuel responds by closing his hand around one of Owen's shoulders, intending to keep him in place as he reaches for a discolored cake of dried paint, the better to crumble on his head. But then Owen steps a few inches closer, one of his paint-smeared hands reaching up to clasp Samuel's. Both hand and shoulder are very, very warm.

This isn't funny anymore.

"Look," Owen starts to say, and then the classroom phone starts to ring across the room. He drops Samuel's hand and darts across the room, picking up the phone. "Mr. Soma, Room 102. Yes, your conference is scheduled for this Friday. No, I don't mind changing it..."

Samuel finishes cleaning the easel as quickly as possible. This is so far beyond the boundaries of ethical conduct, and just because he was a bad agent doesn't mean he isn't _honorable_ , damn it. But there's no one else he trusts enough to guard Owen, and his latest information from Olivia shows encrypted messages flying back and forth between a known Cygne Noir associate in London and somewhere in the Brookline area. It's been quiet for just over three months. They'll be making a move soon.

Owen is still on the phone, so Samuel takes a seat, reviewing his case notes to keep his eyes off Owen. _Bank heist in Tokyo, Cygne Noir involvement as we suspected,_ says Olivia's neat handwriting. _They're missing funds. Police in Paris intercepted a heroin shipment. The organization is rotting from the inside out._

"Yes, Mrs. Kurzweil. We'll talk more about this at the conference, but I just want to reassure you that children learn how to read at their own pace. We just use certain developmental norms to guide our curriculum. Esther is an inquisitive child with excellent phonemic awareness..."

_It's possible that Cygne Noir is after a traitor, and that traitor is close by..._

"Sorry about that," Owen says. He hangs up the phone and reaches for his coat, shrugging it on. "I think we've been here long enough for one day, and the custodian kick us out soon anyway." He gives his hands a rueful glance. "Plus I want a shower."

"You're not wearing a tie today," Samuel says. He didn't notice this morning. Stupid.

"You've been right next to me the entire time. Come on, let's go home. I'll wear the tracker tie pin tomorrow."

While Owen showers, Samuel throws together a quick dinner of spaghetti and garlic bread. He even takes the extra step of heating up the tomato sauce in a pan. It doesn't seem fair that Owen cooks all the time, even if he likes it. He's also been working round the clock at his job while Samuel chases increasingly loose and confusing ends at his. Making dinner is simple work and smells good besides.

"You didn't have to do that," Owen says when he emerges from his bedroom with freshly toweled hair, sweatpants, and a soft gray T-shirt. "We have leftovers."

"I wanted to do something nice for you," Samuel says, loading up his plate with spaghetti, tomato sauce, cheese, and garlic bread. "You spent the whole day letting kids cry and sneeze on you." It's true: everyone in Class 102 today was full of emotion and mucus. Lots of mucus.

"It's a tough time of year," Owen says, accepting the plate Samuel hands to him. "Everyone's getting sick and everything's overstimulating. Sometimes I wish we had a shorter summer break so we could just have December off."

"You should get a medal," Samuel says through a large bite of garlic bread. He should have put cheese it, no matter Owen's health consciousness. They do enough running for three people between the two of them.

Owen shakes his head, pressing his lips together to form an expression of unusual seriousness. "I'm just doing my job. I'm a person, not a saint."

Samuel swallows, brushing the crumbs off the front of his shirt. "Never said you were."

"People like to glamorize the profession right up until it starts interfering with their plans involving me." Owen's looking off into the distance, out the window. Despite the setting sun and the chill, the neighbors are out again. "I'm impatient with anyone over the age of ten. My ideal night involves lazing around on the couch. I get so wrapped up in my own life and my own goals that I forget to look outside myself."

"So you're human," Samuel says with a shrug. "So'm I. We're damn good at our jobs, though."

"Yeah," Owen says. He turns back to the kitchen, and his smile glows under the lights.

*

The Red Line spits them out in the Harvard Square station. Samuel shoulders his way through the crowd of people attempting to get on the train. He's too aware of Owen's hand pressed against the small of his back, staying with him in the crush of people. Over the hiss of the train, he can hear a busker strumming "O Come All Ye Faithful" on a guitar.

Small children and now holiday shopping. This job should be the worst he's ever had.

"I'm so glad they reopened the Curious George store," Owen says as they emerge from the too-hot station to the chilly air outside. He points past the newsstand and across the street to a cheerfully colored store. "'Curious' is such a valuable word for children to know, and George's adventures are fun."

"Uh-huh," Samuel says. They've been shopping all day, and he's been stuck lugging the bags, which are mostly full of children's books. Why they had to get another train to go to another store for more children's books, he has no idea. Why they're shopping _now_ is an even deeper mystery, since Owen's family doesn't really do Christmas either and he only needs one present for the Henney Elementary School Secret Santa exchange. He suspects that deep down, Owen is just a shopaholic.

"My mother says that I read my first word in this store," Owen says, fond expression destroying any hope for Samuel's continuing bad mood. "There was a street sign coloring book and I said, 'S-T-O-P spells stop.'"

There are more toys inside than Samuel would expect from a children's bookstore. He picks up a little toy monkey holding a Christmas tree and turns it over thoughtfully as Owen studies the bookshelves, inspecting covers before he flips through a few books. "Are you sure you don't mind helping me color the flags tonight? I can say from experience that it's a boring job, even if you can do it while you watch TV."

"Melanie couldn't make it. I don't mind," Samuel says. Melanie's version of helping Samuel court Owen, as she puts it, is to leave them alone together as much as possible. In her defense, she has no idea that they're living in the same apartment. A small, treacherous part of Samuel is thrilled that Melanie approves; a larger part of him says not to take advantage. Or perhaps it's the other way around.

After they leave the store, laden down with several more books, Owen takes the unprecedented step of walking them up to the Bank of America and then hailing a cab. "We have too many packages for the bus at this time of day," he explains.

" _I_ have too many packages," Samuel mutters darkly.

They arrive back at the house, and Owen triumphantly slips a squirrel-themed holiday greeting card into the neighbors' mailbox as well as more normal ones into his other neighbors'. Samuel deposits the packages and heats up some soup. When Owen comes inside, he dumps the stack of papers and DVDs and books currently on the coffee table onto the loveseat, replacing them with his laptop, another stack of paper, two pairs of scissors, and a giant box of colored pencils.

As is apparently December tradition, Class 102 makes a heritage flag collage as part of an ongoing families theme. As is tradition in schools everywhere, there is not enough money for teachers to make color copies of things. Since a collage isn't much of a collage with no color, Owen always prints out the flags in black and white and colors them in.

"What movie do you feel like?" Owen asks. "I'm not feeling anything too intellectually engaging or subtitled, since we'll be coloring a hundred flags."

Yeah, it also wouldn't be much of a collage with just ten flags.

Samuel closes his eyes, picturing Owen's DVD shelves. " _The Dark Knight_?"

"Too depressing."

He feels like some explosions to offset all the wholesome domesticity. " _The Losers_?"

"Sure. You bring out the soup, I'll put it on."

Zoe Saldana and Jeffrey Dean Morgan are duking it out in a motel room, Owen is sipping soup out of the oversize mug he prefers to a bowl, and Samuel has colored about fifteen Guatemalan flags. Samuel starts tapping his pencil to the beat as "U.R.A. Fever" kicks into high gear, then reaches for a green pencil to color in the leaves on the flags. His hand brushes Owen's.

Samuel makes the mistake of looking at Owen. He's finished his soup. He's sitting close enough that their knees are touching just a little, a single point of warmth that somehow he can feel through his entire body.

Owen makes a soft sound and leans closer.

If he were a better person, Samuel would say he pulled away because he's currently under contract, because Owen is somehow at the center of an international crime conspiracy, because he wants to keep Owen safe. The reason he jerks back is simply because Samuel Young fears commitment, and in that moment, he knows he's fallen in love with Owen Soma.

"I, uh," Samuel says, and pulls out his phone to hide behind. Thankfully, he and Olivia exchanged numbers on their last rendezvous, and he has a message from her that reads _TOMORROW 6:45 AM._

"Who is it?" Owen asks, voice terribly neutral.

"Olivia," Samuel says, texting her _yes_.

"You talk to her often," Owen says. He sounds like he's reading from a script while zoned out on pain medication. "Do you have feelings for her? I'm just asking for a friend. As a friend."

Samuel puts his phone away like it's made of live coals. "No! I--I--" But there's no plausible lie springing to mind, no excuse he can give that doesn't reveal her identity. "I... Maybe... Yes. Yes, we're thinking of becoming... involved."

"I see."

They don't speak for the rest of the movie, except when Owen asks him to pass the blue.

*

The heritage collage looks amazing posted on the classroom door. "Parents are going to love it when they come for the winter performance," Samuel tries, plastering on his best friendly smile.

"Uh-huh," Owen says, not looking up from his laptop. "Would you mind making some copies for me?"

By the end of the day, Melanie is scowling at Samuel whenever there aren't children in the room.

"Let's get Chinese take-out tonight," he tries after school.

"Do you need help with the groceries?" he tries later that night.

"I like your snowman sweater," he tries the day of the winter performance. (It's the ugliest sweater he's ever seen.) All Owen does is tug his coat over the sweater in response, wrapping a scarf around his neck until he's buried up to the nose in fabric. It still hasn't snowed, but it's cold on the walk to school.

The winter performance is exactly as Owen and Melanie warned him it would be when they were still talking to him. There are families milling around chatting, babies wailing in strollers over all the light and noise, and the music teacher is running around still setting up decorations.

"Do you have the props?" she asks Owen on one of her passes through the gym.

"Crap. Let me run home. Breathe, Joyce, it's just five minutes away. We'll start on time." Owen jogs across the gym and Samuel turns automatically to follow him. Owen looks back over his shoulder with a frown and says, "I'll just be a minute. Help Melanie keep the kids entertained until we're ready to start."

Samuel knows what _you're fired_ sounds like, so he does as asked. When Gerald wraps his arms around his leg, Samuel reaches down to pat his hair. "I know how you feel, kiddo."

Then Gerald says, "I had an accident with the soap," so that turns into fifteen minutes of mopping up hand soap in the classroom, throwing out the plastic remains of the soap dispenser, and reassuring Gerald that no, the police are not coming to arrest him. When Samuel gets Gerald into a fresh shirt and back in line, twenty-five minutes have passed.

Neither the props nor Owen are anywhere in sight.

"I have to go," Samuel says to Melanie, and runs.

It takes two minutes for him to reach the apartment, two minutes he spends hoping that he'll see Owen on his way back to school, just held up a little for some reason. He doesn't see anyone outside. He skids to a stop in front of the apartment. The door is wide open, creaking faintly in the wind.

Samuel takes out his phone and despite his shaking fingers manages to pull up Olivia on his contacts list.

"Cygne Noir has Owen," he says as soon as he hears her pick up. "He disappeared approximately twenty minutes ago. You notify MI6, I'll call the FBI. Don't ask me if I'm sure. He's--he's missing the winter performance."

There's a faint crackle on the other end of the line, then Olivia says, "I'm on my way."

Samuel starts dialing every FBI contact number he remembers. He's never been a religious man, so he doesn't pray, but he does think, over and over again, like a mantra: _Kidnapping and not murder, kidnapping and not murder, kidnapping and not murder._

*

"Yes, I _know_ the standard protocol, but we don't have _time_!" Samuel is shouting into the phone when Olivia pulls up, tires screeching to a halt as she double parks on the street. He jabs the end call button as she sprints out of the car.

"No luck?" she asks. At his nod, her lip curls in a snarl. "Bleeding hell! I'm MI6's only operative on the ground. We're on our own until both our agencies get their shit sorted."

"Okay." Samuel forces himself to take a deep breath, then another. It doesn't stop his heart hammering against his ribcage. "Let's just--go inside and put together what we know. I've solved cases solo before; I'm sure you have. We can do this."

Because if they don't, Owen's life really _is_ forfeit.

They spread out all four months of identical letters on the kitchen counter. There's nothing distinctive about the envelopes, the address (stamped on, return address goes nowhere), or the paper. The message, still typed in 12-point Times New Roman, mocks them: _Fidelity is a rare bird. A poor man wants for nothing. Return or your life will be forfeit._

"We've established that 'rare bird' means Cygne Noir," Olivia says, pacing across the kitchen floor. "It's actually a scholarly reference, from the Latin."

"Irrelevant," Samuel snaps.

"Shut it. It's referring to a faithful wife. There's something there, we're just not seeing it." Olivia's pacing grows more agitated. "A faithful wife is like a black swan. We're in pursuit of a man who betrayed his criminal organization. They're telling him that they're coming for him for his treachery, that much as been obvious since the first I got a look at the letters. What are we missing?"

"We know this man has the jewels," Samuel says. "'A poor man wants for nothing,' maybe they want him to think that nothing will happen if he returns them. 'Return or your life will be forfeit,' that's obvious. There's still nothing in this letter that tells us how this man is connected to Owen. The dots don't connect! Even if someone Owen knows has contact with this thief, Owen knows nothing!"

"Did he see something?" Olivia asks. "Why haven't there been any attempts on his life aside from the one? He hired you, and..." Her frown deepens. "It was like a test to see what he would do. Whether he would go to the police."

"Cygne Noir made a mistake," Samuel breathes. "They think that Owen knows where this man is. Our mystery thief is a mystery to everyone in the world, correct?"

Olivia pulls out a folder, flipping it open to reveal a dossier labeled MR BLACK, the single grainy photograph clipped to the top. "That's the only alias of his we've ever caught him out in, and that was after he left the country. The man specializes in anonymity. No one seems to remember him committing a crime, and then he disappears until the next job."

Samuel takes the folder from her, holding the picture closer to his face. It's still a thin blond man in aviators and with a scarf wrapped around half his face, but it looks familiar in a way it didn't the last time he looked. "When you first described him to me, you called him a master of disguise," he says slowly. The base of his neck is tingling.

"I probably did. The man is."

It's the scarf around his face. He saw someone with identical bone structure wear a scarf the exact same way today.

"Cygne Noir thinks that Owen is the thief," Samuel says over the dull roar in his ears. "If the man is that good, he could dye his hair, even his skin. Fake a connection with an established family. Owen told me he hasn't seen his family in months, first because they were traveling and then because he would have had to explain me. They don't know their man is still at large. They think Owen _is_ their man."

"I was here because Owen looked suspicious," Olivia says, and then closes her eyes. " _Fuck_. They've been waiting for their opportunity as soon as they heard about MI6 poking their nose in. I'm sorry. We have no idea where Cygne Noir's people are or where the real thief is."

"He's not wearing a tie today," Samuel says, slamming his fist against the wall. Olivia starts, opening her eyes to give him a questioning look. "I put a GPS tracker in his tie pin, another in his running shoes. My boss did something similar on an FBI case and it saved someone's life. I thought I could keep him safe." He lets loose a bitter laugh, because it's better than trying to put his fist through the wall again.

"Pull up the tracking information." Olivia's tone brooks no disagreement. "Do it now. If it was to keep him safe, he might have worn the pin without a tie."

Samuel taps at his phone until he has the tracking information. Both appear as dots on a screen, their coordinates practically identical. "See? Running shoes are in the closet, tie pin is on the dresser. Exactly where I'd expect them to be."

Olivia leans closer. "They're kept in the same room?"

"Right."

"One of these items is showing up much farther to the left." Olivia points out the kitchen window. "I would say next door."

The neighbors. The _new_ neighbors, the ones who have binoculars all the time, the ones who moved in the day Samuel met Owen.

Professional that she is, Olivia reads the realization on Samuel's face. She pulls a gun of her own out of her jacket and says, "I know you're not going to wait. I'll cover you."

Samuel nods his thanks as they race out the door.

*

Next door is quiet, no lights on despite the clouds in the sky. After a moment's internal debate, Samuel goes for the subtle approach, attempting to pick the lock until Olivia says "Let me" and gets the door open in three seconds flat. The door swings open and they brace themselves against either side, guns trained on the apartment's interior.

There's no one inside. There's no _thing_ inside, not one item of furniture.

What if Cygne Noir moved Owen? What if they've already killed him?

Samuel forces his breathing steady, moving in with his gun held out in front of him. He can hear Olivia following behind, covering his back as promised. The kitchen area is just as bare, and the bathroom, and the guest bedroom, and the master bedroom. "First floor is clear, and I don't think they have a second floor," he says. "Do you see a tie pin on the floor?"

"I don't think that's a closet," Olivia says, and that's when the door swings open.

"Guns down or I shoot!" the man shouts. He's supporting a semiconscious Owen, bleeding from a shallow cut on his forehead, and there's a click as he takes the safety off the gun in his hand. It's unclear whether he means to shoot them or Owen, but the woman with him has her gun pressed against Owen's temple, so the point is moot.

Samuel and Olivia set their guns on the floor and put their hands up. Owen lets out a low groan, eyes fluttering open, and the man gives him a vicious shake, putting his own gun to Owen's head. The woman switches positions, pointing her gun at the pair of them.

"Your friend says he knows nothing," the man says to Samuel. "I think he is not our friend. You will tell us where our friend is, or you will die."

He's going to kill Owen to let them know how serious he is. Samuel sees his finger tightening on the trigger and leaps forward, tackling not the man but Owen, putting all of his body weight into the tackle to knock Owen clear. Two shots ring out, three bodies hit the floor, and everything is still for an instant.

Owen is underneath him, but Samuel can't tell if he's breathing, if his heart is beating.

"Annette!" the man cries, then another shot is fired, and he falls.

"They're both dead," Olivia says. "How's Owen?"

Samuel rolls off Owen and rises to his feet, dragging his prone form away from the two dead bodies and the twin scents of smoke and blood. When they're at least a few feet away from the carnage, he checks Owen for wounds, patting him up and down. The tie pin is clipped to Owen's pocket and Samuel pulls it out with something like a sob. It doesn't seem like Owen's hurt except for the cut on his head and some bruising around his wrists and neck, but he isn't waking up.

"Samuel?" Olivia asks, anxiety pitching her voice higher than usual.

"Samuel?" comes a weak voice from the floor, and then Owen sits up, one hand clutching at his head and the other at the lapels of Samuel's jacket.

Samuel gives up any pretense of professionalism, cups the back of Owen's neck to draw him closer, and kisses him. Owen goes still for a moment and then kisses back so enthusiastically that their noses mash together before they both adjust. Owen tastes like the green tea he loves, like _warmth_ and _life_.

"I found you," Samuel says when he can bear drawing back. Then he kisses him again, quick but fierce.

"We found you, Owen," Olivia says dryly. "Though I hope you're not expecting the same welcome. Olivia Ikeba, MI6." Sirens wail in the distance, drawing closer. "Oh, thank goodness, help is on the way."

"She's not your girlfriend," Owen murmurs. "She's a secret agent. Are you a secret agent?"

"You're delirious," Samuel informs him, and kisses him again just to make sure Owen's _here_.

"Take your moment now," Olivia says. "We have to go outside and meet the police in about one minute, by my guess."

All three of them are ready and waiting in one minute. Samuel still has an arm around Owen's waist, but he has to let go when the paramedics see the blood on his forehead. Police officers and local FBI agents keep coming over to shake his hand, congratulating him on assisting in taking down two members of a notorious crime ring and saving the life of an innocent man. They're congratulating so they can feel some sense of credit, Samuel knows, but it feels good all the same.

What feels even better, though, is when his phone rings with a job offer from his old boss at the FBI.

*

There's still no damn parking anywhere in Boston.

The car radio drones, informing the public that the CIA and MI6 just apprehended a thief, code name Mr. Black, as well as jewels recently stolen overseas. Samuel finally manages to park a good four blocks from his destination. He gets out, grumbling as he feeds the parking meter the last of his quarters. Didn't they use to accept other coins when he was in college? "Fixing what wasn't broken, that's this city," he mutters.

When he looks up, a little boy in a Red Sox yarmulke is staring at him, eyes wide.

"Hey," Samuel says, lifting a hand in greeting. The little boy wanders off, presumably to find his parents.

The weather in New England has finally decided to get with the program, because there's a soft snow falling as Samuel makes his way to Henney Elementary School. It's Saturday, but after the events of the past school week, the school decided to do a special performance honoring Mr. Soma and his esteemed classroom aide cum rescuer, Mr. Young.

Owen meets him outside the gym. "Hey," he says, pecking Samuel on the cheek. "How'd it go?"

"I took the FBI gig," Samuel replies. "Told them I learned how to be nice in kindergarten. I also told them I had to stay local. Lot of work to do in Boston."

Hand in hand, they walk into the gym. The entire school does a mean rendition of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" followed by "Sevivon, Sov, Sov, Sov," but Samuel's favorite part of the performance is Class 102 standing up to do "The More We Get Together" in English and American Sign Language. Melanie leads them, flashing Samuel an extra bright smile when she sees their joined hands.

" _Oh, the more we get together, the happier we'll be,_ " Samuel finishes with the class, right in Owen's ear, and then they both dissolve into helpless laughter as the rest of the audience bursts into applause.


End file.
